


The Antibody

by theshinycrackerjack



Series: The Antibody Series [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, M/M, Original Character(s), POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshinycrackerjack/pseuds/theshinycrackerjack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is a good undergrad who’s well on his way to going to medical school. Sherlock Holmes is the darling of the Neuroscience Department and is interested in a collaborative effort with the Immunology Department. The two of them would probably have never met if not for a chance meeting on the train (and the antibody).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Antibody

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So ..this is unedited. If there are grammar errors please feel free to point them out to me. That would be much appreciated.

I first notice it because of the alarming looking older man, and if my eyes hadn’t been drawn to him, then this whole thing might never have happened. I would have gotten on the train at 9:45 AM on the dot and arrived at my destination at 10:47 as planned. I would have gotten to class on time (early, even) and taken dutiful notes. I would have gotten through the quarter with decent marks, attended a house party or two, and gone about my life without crossing swords with Sherlock Holmes. 

But that isn’t what happened. There’s a man sitting over there with way too many tattoos—barely an inch of skin unmarred. Seeing someone like that just makes my skin crawl. I’m sure he’s probably a very nice man, but I’ve got this intense aversion to body art. He’s leaning against a railing designed to support bikes, and at the juncture where the rail meets the wall of the train there is a fascinating hinge. It’s shaped like a Y, and there’s something hypnotizing about the symmetry and simplicity of it. It pulls me, tugging at the little artistic sprouts in my brain, and I get out my sketchbook to draw. 

At the next stop a handful of people rush into the train, and I find myself with company. I angle myself away from him or her (I really haven’t even looked yet). I’m getting the angles and the lighting just right on my sketch. My bubble of quiet concentration is suddenly interrupted by a voice. 

“May I borrow your phone?”  
“What?”  
There’s a rather unusual looking man next to me, and he has his hand outstretched already. I hand him my phone almost automatically, like the politeness has been ingrained in me.  
“Thank you,” he says calmly.  
I nod and make some sound of assent in the back of my throat.  
He fiddles with the phone for a minute before handing it back.  
“Why are you drawing antibodies with that marker?”  
“What?”  
“That’s an antibody,” he says pedantically.  
“Okay…” I venture.  
He looks at me expectantly, mouth turned into a slight frown.  
“Well?”  
“Well what?”  
He sighs and I smell a whiff of coffee on his breath.  
“I loathe repeating myself, but I suppose you wouldn’t know that. Why are you drawing an antibody?”  
“I saw it over there.”  
“You saw it …on this train.”  
“Well not an antibody. It’s just a Y-shaped hinge,” I mutter.  
“Fascinating,” he drawls.  
He seems to have lost interest in me and that’s really just fine. I’m suddenly very finely attuned to the fact that he’s next to me—he’s wearing this heavy wool coat over a pair of slacks in the the middle of June. He has the decency to look a bit flushed, but he’s not visibly sweating. When he speaks, his voice swells to fill the whole train car. It’s commanding and imperious and I instantly dislike it. I start tapping my foot lightly, drumming a beat into the ground. The fact that he’s decided to invade my privacy with his frankly irrelevant comment only worsens my mood.  
“Stop that,” he remarks tersely.  
“What?”  
“Stop that infernal tapping. And you made me repeat myself again.”  
He has the nerve to actually appear gravely offended, even though he’s the one instigating. I try to employ a technique I’ve used since elementary school—just ignore the bully and he’ll go away. Unfortunately I appear to have chosen a bad tactic, since he just fills up all of the silence on my end with his own rambling. 

“You seem uncommonly stressed out for a student who’s only in his second year. Multiple pen marks on the fingers, you keep checking your watch so you’re trying to get to class on time, and you have a schedule for the University sticking out of your bag. You’re a good student though, so maybe you’re stressed about your uncertain future in the job market or else you really are just bogged down with classes and midterms even though it's summer session. Can’t imagine that you get poor grades; you’re terribly studious, all of your notes labeled with the date and the lecture number and the title although some of them lack properly labeled drawings, most of them are complete. Saw that when you adjusted your books just now to get a piece of paper out. 

"You’re sitting slightly slouched which either means that you’ve been sleeping poorly and are adjusting your posture to try to alleviate pain in your back and neck or else you’re a slob. You don’t really look like a slob though—pants well pressed and freshly shaven and all of your pens in order in your case. I saw it when you opened your bag just now to put a packet of gum in there, a new habit for you. It’s probably at the behest of a friend or a roommate or a coworker who says that your coffee breath is something akin to a dragon breathing fire, but they really ought to stop being so judgmental. Halitosis is an incredibly common human condition, and to be honest I don’t see anything wrong with the smell of coffee it’s rather soothing and I’m rather fond of stimulants. 

"You haven’t had a sexual relationship with a girl in a year and you think it’s because you’re too focused on your studies to pursue a relationship, but it’s probably more likely a severe distaste for commitment of any kind. You have four missed calls all from different friends and six different text messages asking to have dinner or hang out and you haven’t called back any of these people so clearly you have issues with regular social relationships and feel indifference or perhaps lingering animosity towards them." 

I have trouble catching my breath in the middle of the whirlwind of words and disturbingly accurate analysis. I blink rapidly, sketch now forgotten. My pencil falls from my hand. It rolls a few seats down, but I make no attempt to retrieve it. I sit there silently, nails digging into my palms, willing myself not to say anything. 

"Your pencil fell," he adds nonchalantly.  
The diatribe that follows is embarrassingly histrionic, but wholly deserved. 

“Okay you know what, you can go screw yourself. Shut up, nobody cares what you think and I don’t want you bloody analyzing me when I’m trying to just get to school like ever other goddamn student, so shut the hell up and stop complaining about everything or I swear I’ll punch you.  
“Well there it is."  
“…Well there what is?”  
“It took only 6 minutes 35 seconds to get you to ‘lose your cool’ so to speak.”  
He actually uses air quotes, appearing quite satisfied with himself.  
“You find this amusing,” I grate out.  
“Well yes.”  
I know that I’m going to regret the answer, but I ask anyways.  
“Why,” I say, careful and monotone.  
“It’s a game.”  
At that I just stand up, grab my damn backpack, and leave at the next exit even though I’m still four stops away from my destination. What kind of self-important asshole thinks that riling up people on the train is fun? I leave because I’m honestly afraid that I’ll make good on my threat to clock him if I stay for much longer. 

I end up terribly late to class—so late that there’s no way I’ll even be able to catch the gist of actual lecture. Sure enough, I get there at 11:54, and class is ending. Professor Collins takes pity on me and goes through the lecture afterwards over a cup of coffee, but that’s only because I’ve already had several classes with him. He’s even more sympathetic when I describe who I sat next to on the train.  
“Oh I see you met Sherlock. He’s a regular whack job, that one. Always shows up to the first lecture just to make me look like a fool in front of all the freshmen. The department would fire him if we could, but he brings in all kinds of revenue because his research is revolutionary.”  
He pauses to take a sip of his latte and I gape at him.  
“Sherlock Holmes..?”  
“You didn’t know?”  
I shake my head.  
“I hate him,” Mr. Collins says firm but resigned. He nods twice before sighing, heading back inside to prepare for his next class.  
I am dumb-founded. This is the great Sherlock Holmes, the darling of the university and the self-proclaimed genius. And he’s a great arrogant asshole. I pray that after his (apparent) stint this lecture he’ll just give my Introductory Neuroscience class a wide berth. Of course it doesn’t end up that way at all, because Chance is a cruel bitch and Necessity is her equally vindictive cousin.


End file.
